DECAFFEINATED - Lala Salama - SL14, SL28, Nyasaland - CO2 Process 250g

LOCATION: UPPER BUKYABO

 

ALTITUDE: 1800m - 2200m

 

Lala Salama means 'Sleep Well' in Swahili, there couldn't be a more fitting name to bestow upon our new regular feature of Sparkling Water Decaffeinated coffee from the African continent.

 

This lot comes from our friends at The Coffee Gardens, named after the Gombe and Zebigi Villages:

 

THE COFFEE GARDENS:

 

The Coffee Gardens was established in 2017 with the goal of producing incredible specialty coffee in an ethical way, offering a transparent and direct link between coffee farmers and coffee consumers. The following information on our 2021/22 micro and nano-lots has been produced to enable our customers and consumers to better understand the coffee they are buying, the story behind it, and the incredible farmers who grow it. Micro-lots were assembled by combining day-lots (coffee processed on the same day) with similar taste profiles. Therefore, a single farmer may contribute to multiple micro-lots.

 

The Coffee Gardens have been working with the farmers who produced this micro-lot for the past five years. They know each and every farming family as they live on the mountain about 600 metres above their washing station. This decaf -lot is named after the villages of Gombe and Zebigi, where many of the farmers live. Last year, with the support of roasters, we trained these farmers on growing coffee amongst shade trees, good agricultural practices, and of course, better harvesting techniques. In July, we distributed over 8,300 shade, fruit and fast growing tree seedlings. This year, training is continuing and we’re building toilet blocks for the three primary schools in the area, including Zebugu-Busi Primary School.

 

Farmers have coffee gardens of different sizes and so supply different amounts of coffee. Mr Zesiro Micheal from Gombe was one of the biggest contributors to this micro-lot with 967 KG of red ripe coffee cherries, and Mr Woniala Moses from Zebigi contributed 349 KG of red ripe coffee cherries. Within hours of being picked, coffee cherries are carried down to our station in 50 kg bags by “runners” - a team of over 160 women and men employed from the local community. This coffee is pulped before undergoing our signature fermentation method involving a pre-wash, a long soak in cold mountain spring water, and then a gentle long fermentation lasting forty hours before a final wash. This coffee is meticulously sorted at 12 different stages before export.

 

THE SPARKLING WATER DECAFFEINATION PROCESS:

 

This process was first discovered by a scientist called Kurt Zosel at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in 1967 as he was looking at new ways of separating mixtures of substances. In 1988, a German decaffeination company called CR3 developed this process for decaffeination whereby natural carbon dioxide (which comes from prehistoric underground lakes) is combined with water to create ‘sub-critical’ conditions which creates a highly solvent substance for caffeine in coffee. It is a gentle, natural and organically certified process and the good caffeine selectivity of the carbon dioxide guarantees a high retention level of other coffee components which contribute to taste and aroma.

 

The process is outlined below:

 

The green beans enter a ‘pre-treatment’ vessel where they are cleaned and moistened with water before being brought into contact with pressurised liquid carbon dioxide. When the green coffee beans absorb the water, they expand and the pores are opened resulting in the caffeine molecules becoming mobile.

After the water has been added, the beans are then brought into contact with the pressurised liquid carbon dioxide which combines with the water to essentially form sparkling water. The carbon dioxide circulates through the beans and acts like a magnet, drawing out the mobile caffeine molecules.

The sparkling water then enters an evaporator which precipitates the caffeine rich carbon dioxide out of the water. The now caffeine free water is pumped back into the vessel for a new cycle.

This cycle is repeated until the required residual caffeine level is reached. Once this has happened, the circulation of carbon dioxide is stopped and the green beans are discharged into a drier.

The decaffeinated coffee is then gently dried until it reaches its original moisture content, after which it is ready for roasting.

There are several benefits to using this process for decaffeination:

 

The agent used for extracting the caffeine is entirely natural and the process can be classified as ‘organic’ due to the complete lack of chemicals used throughout. There is also no health risk by consuming coffee that has been decaffeinated in this way.

The way the process works means the other compounds in the green bean are left untouched, meaning decaffeination has no effect on the flavour and aroma of the finished product. The carbon dioxide is very selective and doesn’t extract the carbohydrates and proteins in the green bean which contribute to flavour and smell.

The cell structure of the green bean and the finished roasted bean is unchanged which is of great advantage when working with speciality coffees.

The by-products are 100% natural and recyclable.